Safe & Sound
by Svenja The Strange
Summary: Just a very short oneshot. Jon muses about his feelings for his brother whilst standing watch on the wall.


**Note: **I watched the film "The Hunger Games" recently (LOVED IT!) and heard this song at the end. When I listened to the lyrics I got the idea for this very short story. Hope you enjoy. (I was feeling a little melodramatic and mushy. Sorry for that! :-D)

**Disclaimer: **The characters and the setting belong to George R. R. Martin (damn him, for making up all these great people I wish really existed!). Song belongs to Taylor Swift (and is actually the only good one I know sung by her.)

**Music: **Safe And Sound by Taylor Swift

**SAFE & SOUND**

The night was icy cold and starlit and all the land was filled with the glittery kind of magic, that became almost sensible only in the depth of the most gelid darkness of winter as Jon Snow wandered the sky-high path on the wall. There were many kinds of darkness Jon knew, but in this beautiful night it was the magical kind, the one that lowered over the world like a delicate deep blue veil of translucent silk, bringing with it a crisp clearness that allowed him to see far over the country lying south to the wall under a vault of thousands of bright stars, sparkling like a net of diamonds stretched over the dark hair of a beautiful woman. Many a night had he stood watch on top of the wall, breathing in the fresh air, frost nipping at the tip of his nose and getting caught in his dark hair and the long lashes of his eyes and often had he marveled at the beauty of the country at his feet, the one he had left behind in order to protect it and the loved ones dwelling in it. But tonight only sadness filled his heart. A violent, desperate sadness he had learned to suppress but that had flared up again despite his best efforts to keep it chained to the darkest corner of his heart where he had banished it the day he had left. Left Winterfell, left home, left _him_.

_Father taken captive, Robb is going to war._ He had worked so hard to forget. Well, not even that, but to be able to keep going and to live through the cold, humdrum days of his new life on the wall without thinking about what he had left behind. _Who_ he had left behind.

_I remember tears streaming down your face  
When I said, I'll never let you go,  
When all those shadows almost killed your light._

_Robb is going to war._ The word rang in his ears painfully loud and high, like the sound of a bell being chimed inside his head, making him cringe, the pressure in his chest making it hard for him to breathe. And tired. It was making him so endlessly tired to lie awake every night, wondering, worrying. But they had decided that it was the only way, the way it had to be. They were no Targaryans and certainly no Lannisters and even if they had been born as such, they were still _brothers_. Not brother and sister, but two boys, two grown men now, and what they felt, however right it may have seemed to them, could never be right before their family, the people, the gods. It had not been necessary for any of them to talk through all the reasons why it couldn't be. They were obvious and as clear before them, as clear as the water of the streamlets flowing through the Wolfswood. And still… still it had been hard. _He_ had understood, _he_ hadn't been mad when Jon had decided that it was inevitable for him to leave and take the black, but _h_e had asked him not to anyway._  
_

_I remember you said,  
Don't leave me here alone  
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight._

It was all in the past now. The decisions had been made, their parting had been horrible and Jon would always remember it as the day, when his heart had been ripped in two halves, one of which had remained in his chest, cruelly beating on, not stopping though the other on had stayed in Winterfell with _him_. And now _he_ was going to war and Jon couldn't come. It had taken all the power left in him to let his brothers of the Nightswatch convince him to stay the night he had found out. But other to what they might have thought, it hadn't been them or the vow he had spoken that had held him back that night. He would gladly have died for _him_, would do so right here and now if it would do any good. It had been the knowledge that it would be _him_, who would have had to carry out the sentence of death, _him_ wielding the sword to separate Jons miserable had from his neck. A good death, but selfish. How could Jon ever be so _selfish_ as to put him through that?

_Don't you dare look out your window, darling,  
Everything's on fire.  
The war outside our door keeps raging on._

No, there was nothing, _nothing,_ Jon could do and the feeling was slowly killing him inside. He knew he would have to find another task soon, something to distract him, maybe even something that would help _him_ from where he was, here so far from where _he_ needed him. Sometimes Jon wondered if _he_ was thinking of him as well, wishing to hear his voice, longing to touch the soft skin of his cheek, to sense the smell of…. But he banished these thoughts and locked them away. They were idle, soft, weak. And they had decided to be strong for each other, not to look back, but to cherish the memories of the happy time they had shared in the hearts of their hearts. Without sadness or regret.

_Hold on to this lullaby  
Even when the music's gone..._

_Just close your eyes,  
The sun is going down.  
You'll be alright,  
No one can hurt you now.  
Come, morning light,  
You and I'll be safe and sound._

There was only hope to cling to. Hope that _he_'d be alright, that Jon himself would be alright. _He_ was strong and able, sage and brave and he would make it. And Jon, he decided this very moment that he was standing in the icy breeze of this clear night, looking out far over the country, almost imagining he could make out _his_ presence somewhere far away and still so close, would make it too. He would survive whatever hardship life had in store for him, and he would see _him_ again, touch _his_ face and kiss the hot, soft lips he longed for so much, no matter what the cost might be. In the end they would be safe and sound, maybe even together again, no matter if only for a short time. Jon knew they would be, because they _had_ to be. There was no joy in the world without _him_. No world without the way _he_ spoke, they way _he_ smiled, the way _he_ laughed, just the way _he_ was. Yes, Jon knew. _He_ had to be alright, because there would be no world for Jon without _Robb_.

_Just close your eyes  
You'll be alright  
Come, morning light,  
You and I'll be safe and sound..._


End file.
